Critical Essay by Jack DeBellis

In the following essay, DeBellis asserts that John Updike's references to 2001 in Rabbit Redux underlines the major thematic concerns in the novel.

“The power of the cinema, the awful power of it.”

—John Updike1

John Updike's dozens of references to films and allusions to screen actors and actresses reveal not just a passing knowledge of an important aspect of American popular culture but offer verisimilitude and nostalgia, while providing a clever disclosure of character and support for theme. So adept is Updike at using every element of film that even titles on marquees foreshadow and counterpoint his themes. Individual films reveal ironic relations to his images...